


Partner in Crime

by orphan_account



Category: Grand Theft Auto V, The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Grand Theft Auto Online, Muteness, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-03 09:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16324013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: On his way to a maximum-security prison in Georgia, an unlikely turn of events leads a mute criminal to care for a little girl. Armed with the knowledge he gained from his exploits across the country, can he protect her from the horrors of the world?





	1. A New Day

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from FanFiction.com. Original notes:
> 
> "This is the first time I've written anything in 5 or 6 years, so go a little easy. (please!) Since the GTA Online protagonist is technically an OC, I originally wasn't sure whether or not to mark this as a crossover. To tie the two universes together, I added some details about the events leading up to his arrest. Be sure to read and review, burn my house down, whatever. Enjoy."
> 
> Additionally, this work is still being developed, so tags will change (and the rating might, too!)  
> Don't forget to read, review, steal my dog, whatever. Enjoy.

The sun beamed down onto the highway leading out of Atlanta, as a lone squad car cruised southbound. The young man in the backseat had been quiet throughout the trip, seemingly lost in thought as he gazed out the side window.

A voice from the front had pulled him back into reality.

“Well, I reckon you didn’t do it, then.”

The passenger looked up for a moment, then resumed watching the fields pass by outside.

“Nope, definitely not.” No response.

The officer, annoyed, continued. “Y’know, I’ve driven a buncha’ fellas down to this prison. Lord knows how many. Usually ‘bout now’s when I get the ‘I didn’t do it.’” He paused, expecting a response. When he received none, he asked, “But you don’t talk much, do ya?” As anticipated, silence greeted him.

The driver was clearly irked by his passenger’s absolute refusal to acknowledge anything he said. Regardless, he figured that talking about the case might get the mute to open up.

“I read your case, y’know. Big ol’ heist you planned with your buddies, like somethin’ straight outta Hollywood! Three point two million dollars, and y’all almost got away with it!”

Although he had never heard of “Hollywood”, the convict mentally conceded that what the officer described was true. He roped three other aspiring criminals into the plan he created with the help of Lester, who had contacted him about “real work”. Four months later, they would hit the largest branch of the Pacific Standard Bank. Four men, unacquainted with each other, were about to pull off the largest job in their lives.

The trouble started inside the bank. One of the thermite charges the crew stole from the military had failed to ignite, so they had to threaten the teller to coax him into opening the door leading down to the vault. While the collection team were shoving fistfuls of cash into their duffels, one of the crowd control’s weapons accidentally fired, killing one of their hostages. When collection was complete, an army of SWAT officers greeted the heist crew outside. Miraculously, both cash bags survived the ordeal; if the crew took the getaway motorcycles as planned, they would have gotten away. The crew, suddenly feeling apprehensive about riding the bikes, sent one member into his house to retrieve his armored car. By the time he emerged, however, all of his teammates lay unmoving on the concrete. The SWAT army surrounded the vehicle in seconds, and the suspect surrendered.

The hoarse voice of the officer snapped the mute back into the present. “Y’know what?” the officer frustratedly barked as he turned to face the backseat. “How ‘bout you- “

A loud thud rang out inside the cabin as the police car veered uncontrollably off the road, rolling over multiple times before slamming into a tree.

* * *

The passenger awoke after the crash, unable to tell how long he’d been out. Against all odds, the only injury he could notice was a slight pain in his leg. He knew it wasn’t going to be serious, although he couldn’t be say the same about his driver’s condition. To be fair, he couldn’t say much; that, or he didn’t. Regardless, he kicked out the window out of the passenger-side rear door and clumsily lifted himself out. He scanned the area around him, not noticing any immediate threats, and worked up the courage to inspect the now-dead officer.

The officer, it had appeared, succumbed to grave wounds during a gruesome battle against…a bear, perhaps? The mute wasn’t sure if there were any bears in his area, anyway. As he looked over the corpse’s many bite wounds, he eyed a pair of handcuff keys on the ground. He snatched them and hastily freed his hands, rubbing his sore wrists. A low moan erupted from his feet, and he glanced down at them.

Suddenly, _the dead officer lunged at him_!

The mute rushed away, barely escaping the deadly grip of the dead man. He scooped a rock out of the dirt and bashed the officer’s head with it. It took six or seven hits to immobilize the corpse, for good. He froze in place, taking shaky breaths as he failed to comprehend the events that had just occurred. In his frantic internal search for an explanation, he didn’t notice a small silhouette on the hill in front of him. It faded away before he stared at the hill, concluding that it was his only shot at receiving help or answers.

At the crest of the hill, a modest wooden fence stood. The mute scaled it like so many he had encountered before, expertly swinging his body across the top. He didn’t bother rolling when he landed; the fence was much too short to necessitate that. The backyard he hopped into was rather modest in comparison to the ones in Vinewood, where he had once owned a nice stilt house. He spotted a small pool to his left, the surface covered by a tarp. To the right was a treehouse, potentially occupied, but he didn’t have the tools needed to clear it. Without any other options, he tried the back door. To his surprise, it slid open without any resistance. He snuck in, careful to dampen his footsteps as much as he could.


	2. The House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why it took so long to upload this chapter (laziness, I guess).

The house reeked of death; it was a smell the mute knew well. All his criminal activity meant that at some point, he’d have to dispose of a body. He hated the stench of death, loathed every second of carrying a corpse to his car. Every second it spent in his trunk stained the cloth with coagulated blood. The musty scent of the recently deceased was not easily forgotten. Near the end of his time in Los Santos, the trunk of his car smelled like a morgue, and for that reason alone he hired someone to deliver groceries to him, kept his car as clean as possible, always stowed his implements of war on the floor behind his seat. He never interacted with people who weren’t connected to his career in some way, so he wasn’t afraid of being caught. During his downtime, he wanted nothing more than to forget all the clean-ups he had to perform. Yet here he was, in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by the odor of _death_.

He cursed mentally at the officer, berating him in his mind for not paying attention to the road, for not bringing him to the prison. He’d be bored to tears, but at least he wouldn’t be encapsulated by that _damn smell_.

Absentmindedly, he stared down at his blood-soaked coveralls. The formerly orange uniform was now engulfed by the brownish blood of the officer he had to re-dead not fifty feet from where he was. The mute recalled the events; he woke up from a car crash and nearly got killed by someone _who was already deceased_. How the officer was able to attack him still flummoxed the mute.

The mute shook himself out of his thoughts once more and explored the house in search of some garments that wouldn’t convince everyone within a five-mile radius that he was going to prison for a lot more than armed robbery. He heard a muffled moan, similar to the undead officer’s attacking cry, somewhere down the hall. He advanced to the hallway, deciding to clear the rooms closest to him first. He tried the door to his left, which opened with ease.

He had stumbled upon a child’s room, probably belonging to a kid no older than ten. The walls were messily obstructed by papers bearing dozens and dozens of poorly-drawn animals and people. One drawing had fallen onto a polka-dot bed (or maybe it had never been hung up). The mute declined to investigate, and he traveled down the hall. Upon approaching the last door, the previously silenced groans had erupted once again, and the mute knew he would need to kill again. He headed towards the kitchen to locate a weapon.

After rifling through three or four drawers, he finally spotted a suitable(-ish) instrument: a butter knife. ‘ _All this searching for a God damn butter knife?! How does this household have_ no _steak knives_ at all _?!’_ He realized he needed an outlet for the frustration built up by this _very important issue_ , and luckily he had one. He treaded lightly back towards the unopened door in the hall; as expected, the muttering picked back up again. The mute barged in, barely able to lift his arm to strike a seemingly invisible enemy before his free arm was pulled away from him. Knowing what he’d see, he glanced left at another cadaver, a young woman, attempting to tug his hand to her mouth. Instinctively, he tried to pull his hand back, but it didn’t budge. He brought his knife hand up to the undead woman’s head and pierced her temple, blood seeping out of the newly created puncture. The grip on his hand loosened, and the lifeless body fell to the floor when he removed the knife from its skull. When he thought he was completely safe, the biggest scare he had all day followed a few seconds after the skirmish.

“You killed my babysitter…”

* * *

The mute snapped his view back towards the door quickly enough to cause pain in his neck. A little girl stood in the doorway, gazing at the corpse of her caregiver before turning to the mute. “It’s okay though, I- I know she wasn’t alive anymore.”

A sudden wave of unfounded guilt washed over the mute. Had he just murdered the one person protecting this girl from this…thing? He replayed the experience in his mind and concluded that the girl was right; whatever he’d killed, it wasn’t her living babysitter. That thought made him feel a tiny bit better, though not much.

“Uh, hello?”

Oh right, the girl.

The mute fidgeted with his hands, having so many questions but unable to ask any of them. _‘Where are your parents?’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘Do you have any spare clothes?’ ‘Why don’t you have any steak knives?’_ Amidst his silent confusion, he knew one certainty: he’d be a shitty babysitter.

“Please talk to me. _Please._ ” The worry was evident on her face, and he figured it wouldn’t be long before she’d get the idea. Just like he predicted, she took a guess.

“So you don’t talk? How come?”

Certainly, she knew how pointless that question was. Regardless, the mute gave the only answer he could: a small shrug. He then directed the girl’s attention to his filthy clothing.

“Oh.” Shit. He hadn’t even thought about _what_ he was wearing until now. He was still wearing that orange jumpsuit he was given before the drive to the state prison, the trip he’d never complete. He panicked, hoping that she wouldn’t think he was a…

“There’re some clothes in my parents’ room. I don’t think my dad would mind.” The mute hoped he could find some new clothes out there, if only to prevent false accusations. The girl extended her hand, and the mute reluctantly took it. Following her lead, he made his way to the wardrobe in the master bedroom.

“I’ll wait outside…” With that, she left the room and closed the door. The mute smiled; it was quite endearing, seeing how trusting she had been of a complete stranger. In his line of work, trusting strangers was both a necessity and a risk. Some people could rat you out to the cops, some could make off with your cut, some could just kill you. Complete, unconditional trust was hard to come by, and witnessing it in her had ignited a flame inside the mute. Whether he felt she deserved it, or he wanted to atone for all the bad things he’d done, or he felt that she was representative of a human quality that absolutely couldn’t die, he vowed to protect that girl at all costs. No matter what, hope would survive, and he would guard it.

But not in an inmate’s uniform.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Notes:  
> "Sorry for the wait! I'm not very good at characterization, and I didn't have any clue what approach I'd take with Clem. Also, I'm really bad at writing long chapters (I may combine chapters later on), so this one's also short. Be sure to review, burn my house down, whatever."
> 
> Don't expect a regular update schedule. That is all.


End file.
